WASHINGTON \u2014 Rocket Lab successfully launched a Japanese radar imaging satellite Dec. 21 in the final flight of a record-setting year for the company.<\/p>\n
An Electron rocket lifted off at 1:36 a.m. Eastern from Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand. The rocket deployed its payload, the QPS-SAR-15 satellite for Japanese company iQPS, into a 575-kilometer orbit at an inclination of 42 degrees about 50 minutes later. The satellite later made contact with controllers, iQPS said.<\/p>\n
The launch was the seventh Rocket Lab mission for iQPS, which is developing a constellation of synthetic aperture radar imaging satellites. The company aims to have 24 satellites in orbit by 2027 and ultimately operate 36 spacecraft.<\/p>\n
Six of the seven Electron launches for iQPS took place this year. Rocket Lab is currently under contract with iQPS for five additional launches.<\/p>\n
Rocket Lab said this was its final Electron launch of 2025. The company ends the year with 21 Electron launches, a record for Rocket Lab. That total includes three launches of HASTE, a suborbital version of Electron used for hypersonics testing.<\/p>\n
Three of the 21 launches occurred in December, including a Dec. 13 launch of a technology demonstration satellite<\/a> for the Japanese space agency JAXA from New Zealand and a Dec. 18 launch of four DiskSat satellites<\/a> for the U.S. Space Force from Wallops Island, Virginia. The company had planned an additional launch from New Zealand carrying the NEONSAT-1A imaging satellite for South Korea, but technical issues scrubbed two launch attempts earlier in the month.<\/p>\n The 21 launches met a goal Rocket Lab set earlier this year of conducting at least 20 Electron launches in 2025. The company performed 16 Electron launches in 2024.<\/p>\n \u201cCongratulations to iQPS on this latest successful mission for their constellation, and to the Rocket Lab team on a fantastic record-setting year of Electron launches,\u201d Peter Beck, Rocket Lab\u2019s chief executive, said in a statement.<\/p>\n Rocket Lab has carved out a niche in the small-launch market even as many other companies in the sector struggle. The company trails only SpaceX in the number of launches among Western companies in 2025, although by a wide margin: SpaceX has completed 165 launches so far this year.<\/p>\n Beck said Rocket Lab plans additional launches for constellation customers as well as suborbital and orbital national security missions, but did not set a specific target for Electron launches. \u201cOur new record of annual launches and the breadth of upcoming missions go to show how much of a global impact Electron continues to have on the space industry, and we\u2019re looking forward to another year of continued execution in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 Rocket Lab successfully launched a Japanese radar imaging satellite Dec. 21 in the final flight of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":647153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3844],"tags":[20193,49844,23572,70,86186,413,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-647152","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-electron","9":"tag-iqps","10":"tag-rocket-lab","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-sn","13":"tag-space","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115760045942405513","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}